Saturday, May 28, 2016

La Belle É-"box"

Absinthe, that mysterious emerald elixir which calls to mind
visions of bohemia complete with Parisian cafes, famous artists and enchanted
evenings. I knew that eventually I would
want to write about it, and Thomas Cummings has given me the chance. He produces his puzzle boxes under his “Eden
Workx” label and is a self-described lover of hidden spaces, secret entrances
and disguises. Taking a puzzling concept
from, as he notes, 18th Dynasty Egypt, circa 3150 BC, he has created
a clever puzzle box from reclaimed barn wood, brass accents, and an old,
hard piece of decorative wood he placed on top, which has a distinctive feature. Etched into the wood are little squiggles
which have a rather suggestive appearance.
Thomas said that upon seeing this, his wife queried whether it was “wormwood”. While not made from the
infamous bitter plant of that name, it is possible that little grubs might have
burrowed in this wood in its past and left their footprints behind. The name for this box went through a few permutations
but in the end that was too good to pass up and it is now officially called the
“Worm Wood” box.

The Worm Wood Box by Thomas Cummings

The puzzle itself is fantastic and the interesting “worm wood”
on top is just one of the nice details.
There is a brass dial or knob on the front, with some hinges, a few
square studs around the top on all sides with verdigris brass accents, and a
French polish finish to boot. As a
puzzle box it proves a very fun challenge complete with a few dead ends and misdirections,
and a great ending. As with his
Navigator box, it has a rustic feel combined with an artistic finish, and
provides a nice balance of novelty and difficulty. Apparently the name also had Thomas searching
out the “old bottle of Absinthe” – possibly to inspire another great design.

Are those worms on top?

Absinthe has a long, long history, going back to ancient
Egypt and Greece and ending up in 19th century Europe where it was
thought to produce visions in its imbibers.
It gets its name and the tales of its hallucinogenic effects from its
most famous ingredient, wormwood, or artemisia absinthium. Very high concentrations of the active
chemical in wormwood, thujone, were once thought to produce mind altering
effects. Absinthe does not actually
contain such high levels, and regardless, thujone has since been shown to have
no such properties. It’s likely that
toxins and even poisons such as copper salts found their way into the drink due
to cheap production methods in the late 19th century and that these
are what made folks like Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec literally mad for
the potion.

Absinthe verte

Wormwood was thought to have
medicinal properties in Ancient Egypt and Greece, where it was used thousands
of years ago to flavor wine. Modern day
Absinthe originated in Switzerland, invented by the physician Pierre Ordinaire
in 1792, also with a medicinal purpose in mind.
They certainly had good medicine back then. It’s not as silly as it sounds, since
wormwood does have anti-parasitic effects and absinthe was used to effectively
treat and prevent malaria in French soldiers of the day. In the mid 1800’s it became the drink of
choice for the bohemians and bourgeois of Paris, where it developed its air of
magic and mystery, and was known as “la fée verte”, the green fairy. Surely this was encouraged by the mesmerizing
way that absinthe behaves when prepared in the traditional manner, which is by
placing a sugar cube on a special slotted spoon which rests on top of the
glass. Ice water is then dripped slowly
through the sugar and into the absinthe in the glass below. Wisps of smoky, cloudy ribbons begin to curl
and swirl around in the glass, creating what is known as a “louche” (French for
“opaque”). For you chemists, this is the
result of herbaceous components in the drink which are not water soluble, such
as anise, being released.

The mysterious louche

Like the
drink, the history clouds over around the turn of the last century, when
another Swiss man murdered his family while under its influence (plus a
tragic volume of other alcohol in his system as well).
World-wide bans on absinthe soon resulted. In recent times, absinthe has been produced
again, although with regulations on keeping the thujone levels extremely low. France lifted its official ban in 2011,
almost one hundred years after the backlash.
You can now experience high quality, authentic absinthe, either vert
(green) or blanche (white), with its classic wormwood, anise and fennel
flavors, at your leisure. Whether you
find artistic or other inspiration in the glass remains for you to discover. Cheers!